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Chemical companies say that their products are rigorously tested for health and safety, their
facilities are safe for workers and nearby communities, and their industry is tightly regulated. Can we believe their claims?

Not based on their own internal documents, thousands of which we are publishing on this site for the first time.

Company Kept 1984 Tap Water Tests Secret After Finding C8 Contamination in Ohio Town

Secret tests conducted in 1984 by the DuPont chemical company found a Teflon-related contaminant (C8) in the tap water of the Little Hocking Water Association in Ohio, just across the river from the companys Teflon plant in Parkersburg, West Virginia. But the company never told the community, its water utility or state regulators about the tap water testing program, which continued through at least 1989, or about the positive findings.

December 3, 2002 marks the 18th anniversary of the worst disaster in the chemical industrys history. A toxic release in the middle of the night of December 3, 1984 at a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India sent a cloud of Methyl Isocyanate into the air over the city. An estimated 6,000 people died in the immediate aftermath, most suffocating from the clouds toxic chemicals. Since 1984, over 20,000 people have died as a result of the disaster, according to survivor groups in Bhopal. Hundreds of thousands of Indians have claimed health effects from exposure to the chemical cloud.

West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection conducted an inadequate review of federal and industry science before determining that tap water contaminated with a Teflon-related chemical is safe to drink, a new EWG analysis concludes. Public and private drinking water supplies in West Virginia and Ohio have been contaminated with the chemical-a fluorine-based compound known as C8-as a result of manufacturing and disposal operations at a DuPont Teflon plant in Washington, West Virginia.

Petrochemical lobbyists are claiming that the US EPA forced their industry to use the gasoline additive MTBE starting in the early 1990s, and it therefore should not be held responsible for its pollution. However, internal industry documents obtained by EWG show that MTBE's use was the industry's idea, for which it aggressively lobbied - despite knowing as early as 1980 that the additive would rapidly contaminate groundwater supplies for millions of people.

Monsanto is attempting to defend itself against lawsuits and a barrage of negative publicity surrounding its PCB pollution of an entire community in Anniston, Alabama. But the nearly 4,000 searchable pages of Monsanto documents now available on EWG's Chemical Industry Archives show Monsanto knew it was poisoning a community with potentially devastating health effects. The company today is still arguing it "acted responsibly" and that press coverage to date has been based on statements "taken out of context" of these documents.

Now you can read the story of Anniston - in context and in the company's own words.
(Read more) 01/11/2002.

Beryllium DiseaseA covert deal between government and industry caused thousands of workers and community residents to contract an incurable, often fatal, lung disease. Despite the deaths of hundreds of victims, the beryllium industry repeatedly insisted that exposures to beryllium dust were safe. (read more)